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It’s release day — my first release of 2010 — and it’s a book of my heart.  Lessons of the Heart  is a western historical novella available today from The Wild Rose Press. It’s a book of my heart for many reasons, one of which is the setting, which was inspired by my childhood love for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books.

My heroine, Ruth, is a spinster schoolteacher, and my hero, Garth, is a homesteader/cowboy living in Dakota Territory. Most of my knowledge of this setting and time period is courtesy of Laura, her stories, and the many biographies and other information about her. I devoured everything I could find about her life and times when I was younger. I still enjoy re-reading the series to this day. To my dismay, neither of my sons ever took to the series.

Another of my favorite series from childhood is The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. My older son found them boring (as if!) but my younger son enjoyed them. Of course, we all want to share the books we loved as children with our own children.  Remember the Beverly Cleary books?  Henry, Beezus, and Ramona?  Neither of my boys read them.  Or Judy Blume?  I guess you need to be a girl to enjoy those, lol. 

My boys have introduced me to some great new children’s authors, though.  Margaret Peterson Haddix, Neal Shusterman, and. of course. the inimitable J.K. Rowling.  Good literature is good literature, whether it’s written for children or adults.

What books were your favorite as a child? Do your children enjoy them today? What new children’s authors do you enjoy? Have they inspired your writing?

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Spinster schoolteacher Ruth Blackburn has accepted her fate.  She’s not meant for love, especially not with ill-mannered—though excruciatingly handsome—Garth Mackenzie, the widowed father of one of her students.  She’ll just have to ignore the fact that he makes her skin heat.

Garth Mackenzie is used to loss. The Civil War cost him his best friend and his ability to sleep through the night, and illness stole his wife and son. To avoid the pain of losing his daughter, he keeps her at arm’s length, much to her teacher’s dismay.  Ruth Blackburn is independent and opinionated—just what Garth doesn’t need.  But her vibrant beauty and energy awaken feelings in him he thought long dead. 

Can he let go of his past and open up to new lessons of the heart?